Stygian23 wrote:
As for those Euros who are going to talk gun laws. Stow it. You live on a continent that lost ALL its dangerous animals long, long ago. You cannot speak to the American mindset, nor to the realities on the ground. We have bears, large felines, etc. Open space that could swallow all of Europe, and then some. You cannot compare your overly tamed children's park of a culture/society to that of the Americans. We have different requirements and different cultures. Beyond that, wtf are you to even question our policies? We don't bring guns to Europe, so as far as I can see, it has nothing to do with you all whatsoever.
Not to mention one salient fact: taking away guns doesn't take them away from the criminals. It only takes them away from honest citizens which makes it easier for the criminals in the long run. Criminals get their guns illegally already. The rest of us have to get registered, and are limited in what we can buy. Making them illegal won't stop anyone from dying from guns. It just makes the criminals the winners, because people who weren't doing anything wrong to begin with gave up more of their rights in the false belief it was making things better. Losing rights never makes anything better. Ever.
Dude, europe might have lost most of it's wild animals but it's got crime older than America's history. Hunting rifles kill wild animals, but it wasn't hunting rifles that made their way into the hands of terrorists in Northern Ireland. Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't happening, look harder......... it has plenty to do with us.
As for the last paragraph. Taking guns away DOES stop criminals getting them and making them illegal WILL stop people from dying...and sometimes, the people need protected from themselves. Not all 'rights' are right....otherwise there'd be no such thing as an 'amendment'.
Interesting reading, maybe sourcing the origions and legitmacy of the stories will help with the 20/20.
Venezuelan national and a US citizen placed an order for 150,000 rounds of AK-47 ammunition at a single gun shop in Miami. Although it is legal to buy ammunition in the United States, exporting it requires a special license, which the smugglers did not have. Instead, they listed the cargo as AAA batteries and tried to ship it to Venezuela, which is known to be a source of arms smuggled into Colombia for paramilitary and rebel groups. US Customs arrested the two men after receiving a tip from the gun shop.
Haiti Florida is also popular with Haitian gun smugglers. According to the ATF's Miami office, 25 percent of its gun-smuggling cases in the past two years have involved guns destined for Haiti, making it the number-one foreign destination for guns trafficked out of the area. One bust in 1995 uncovered 15,000 rounds of ammunition and 260 firearms, purchased from gun dealers in Fort Lauderdale. In another incident, two men were arrested after they stuffed 110 semiautomatic pistols inside turkey carcasses and tried to ship them to Haiti, which has long harbored paramilitary groups and death squads. The guns had been legally purchased from gun shops in Pompano Beach.
IRA In July 1999 an Irish postal worker uncovered a smuggling operation that involved guns mailed from the United States to members of the Irish Republican Army. An ensuing investigation by British police and the FBI intercepted forty-six handguns and 600 rounds of ammunition, all legally purchased at gun dealerships in Florida. Siobhan Browne, a suspect whom the Irish press dubbed the IRA "Mata Hari," told authorities that a gun-shop owner in Florida agreed not to file required ATF paperwork for a fee of $50 per gun. Another suspect, Conor Claxton, who confessed that the weapons were intended for possible use against Northern Ireland's police, said the IRA chose South Florida because of its lax gun laws and its abundant gun shops.
Hezbollah Although a convicted felon, Ali Boumelhem was able to acquire several weapons by purchasing them at gun shows in Michigan (background checks are not required at shows in that state). He was preparing to ship them to Lebanon when he was arrested by ATF and FBI agents. FBI agents believed that the weapons were destined for Hezbollah, since they had earlier seen Boumelhem in a videotape declaring his allegiance to the group. Boumelhem was eventually convicted in March 2002 on seven arms and conspiracy charges, and sentenced to forty-four months in federal prison.
Al-Fuqra Members of Al-Fuqra, a US-based organization linked to numerous terrorist attacks, exploited gun-law loopholes in Virginia to acquire a small arsenal of weapons. As a convicted felon, Vincente Pierre couldn't legally purchase a firearm, so he had his wife, Traci Upshur, buy guns for him. The "straw purchase" was videotaped in 1998 by ATF agents, who were gathering evidence against members of Al-Fuqra as part of a wide-scale investigation. It wasn't until after September 11, however, that the two were finally arrested, in what US Attorney John Brownlee characterized as a new policy of "prevent first and prosecute second." Another Al-Fuqra member, Bilal Abdullah ben Benu, lied about his criminal past when purchasing firearms in 1999. Like Pierre and Upshur, Benu had been under surveillance by ATF long before September 11, and was quickly arrested afterward.
ELN Colombian arms dealers ran a smuggling operation out of Florida in the late 1990s that supplied weapons to members of the National Liberation Army, a major guerrilla group in Colombia. When Colombian intelligence officials seized a trove of assault rifles headed to the rebel group, ATF agents helped traced them to gun shops in Miami. The agents believe that the smugglers purchased as many as 600 assault rifles, which they concealed as machine parts and shipped to Colombia on cargo flights.
want to argue about whether Iraqis are arabs, or whether or not amerikkka is killing them systematically for oil; or about the Argument Clinic that they use to infect all posts.
Peace